Drunken Man Goes for Joyride on Airport Runway

An airport can be one of the quietest places in the world to spend Christmas Eve; that is as long as there isn’t a deviant bartender somewhere in the place feeding last-minute travelers a high-octane concoction of holiday despair and Makers Mark. At that point, everything from hurt feelings to an international incident is possible - and highly likely.

At least that seems to be the consensus at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport, where authorities say a drunken British man mustered up enough nerve to steal a vehicle belonging to an airport contractor, and then took it for brief joyride on the runway.

According to reports, the highly inebriated passenger was headed home for Christmas when he thought it would be a good idea to sneak past one of the airport gates and commit grand theft auto before boarding his flight. “He drove around for a few minutes, but at no point was there any danger to flight traffic. There aren’t many flights on Christmas Eve and there were none at all at the time he took the car,” said police spokesperson Dennis Muller.

Authorities quickly apprehended the man who was headed back to Britain to spend the holidays with his family. Unfortunately, instead of simply enduring a layover in an Amsterdam airport, he ended up spending Christmas hungover in a local jail. Been there -- it's not terrible, they serve cookies for dessert.